Blood in the Machine

Blood in the Machine

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Data centers, AI, and the 2026 elections. Ft. Paris Marx.
Plus, three things we should be watching as Americans head to the polls on Tuesday.
 • Brian Merchant
1:12:06
We cannot under any circumstances let AI firms govern the future
Anthropic is trying to write its own laws. And all the AI firms have proposals for how their AI will serve the public. Here’s what they have in…
 • Brian Merchant
The big tech defectors you’re not hearing about
After Tariq Ra’ouf spoke out about Apple’s treatment of Palestinians, he was fired. He joins a growing legion of overlooked workers protesting big tech…
 • Brian Merchant
47:47
California vs. the tech billionaires
Inside the fight to pass California’s Prop 40, and to stop tech titans’ dystopian vision for working people from coming to pass. With CA labor leader…
 • Brian Merchant
1:08:20
The 15 best Luddite horror films
From Godzilla to Pulse to the Terminator, these are the best films that register an aggressive critique of technology.
 • Brian Merchant
The two words the AI industry hates more than anything
I talk with computational linguist Emily M. Bender, co-author of the influential 2021 “stochastic parrots” paper, about why AI industry leaders can’t…
 • Brian Merchant
50:02
California just passed the strongest AI labor laws in the US
Finally, some good news
 • Brian Merchant

September 2026

What’s really behind AI ‘super intelligence’
This week on the podcast, we pull back the curtain on the AI extinction narrative, and interview the humans working long hours behind the scenes to make…
 • Brian Merchant
51:58
The AI extinction narrative is winning out
It’s even sidelining Trump and his nationalist “super intelligence,” while leaving Anthropic and OpenAI poised for maximal profit. Plus: How workers can…
 • Brian Merchant
How to kick Flock out of your town
How to fight the surveillance state one block at a time, with “Ed” from DeFlock.
 • Brian Merchant
54:03
The ‘End Times Fascists’ of AI, ft. Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor
A conversation with Klein and Taylor about the AI extinction industrial complex and the tide of end times fascism in the tech industry.
 • Brian Merchant
1:04:23
The politics and possibilities of ‘AI could kill us all’
AI will not exterminate the human race. But what big tech really *is* doing is bad enough, and the notion may help fuel the movement against it.
 • Brian Merchant
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